Self portrait etching by Rembrandt - credit, Charlotte Meyer's collection
Self portrait etching by Rembrandt – credit, Charlotte Meyer’s collection
It will never cease to be surprising how often it occurs that the works of master painters turn up in people’s attics, basements, and barn sheds.
From Amsterdam comes the story of just such an occasion, when a Dutch woman confined to her home by government decree during the COVID-19 pandemic, used it as an opportunity to leaf through a folder of prints and etchings left to her by her grandfather.
Some of them had been in the family for a century, and wouldn’t you know that it contained 35 etchings by none other than the Master himself: Rembrandt van Rijn.
Signed with his name, Charlotte Meyer was still “sheepish” about approaching experts with her discovery, worried they might be forgeries and so waste everybody’s time.
But when the team of appraisers from the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam arrived, they had some shocking news for Meyer.
“They said, ‘Charlotte, you have no idea what you’ve got!’” Meyer tells Dutch outlet Omroep Gelderland. “It’s such a beautiful story, one you can only dream about.”
The Pancake Woman by Rembrandt – credit, Charlotte Meyer’s collection
Her grandfather had collected the works between 1900 and 1920. Some are very small, measuring just a few inches in length.
“Nobody was interested in etchings back then. They were nothing special. For just a few guilders, my grandfather bought 35 different ones.”
Priced in gold, a “few guilders” at that time would today be worth several thousands of dollars, but considering a Rembrandt print—not an original—recently fetched $4.1 million at a recent Christie’s auction, it was clearly a bargain.
Discovering the etchings has changed Meyer’s life somewhat, as she has now embarked on a journey of collecting Rembrandt etchings which will now be featured in a museum exhibit called Rembrandt: From Dark to Light.
To be enjoyed at the Stedelijk Museum Zutphen, Meyer will lead a guided tour of the exhibit. which contains all 35 of her grandfather’s Rembrandt etchings, on March 29th.
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Courtesy of Jim Wuellenweber and Bianca Johnson Dion (via Youtube)
Courtesy of Jim Wuellenweber and Bianca Johnson Dion (via Youtube)
A group of snowmobilers in New Hampshire saved a young moose doe who needed a helping hoof.
Returning home for lunch after a morning zipping over the drifts 4 to 5 feet deep, Mike Dion told WMUR news that he and his friends came across an unexpected sight: a moose buried up to its neck in snow.
It was clearly in trouble. All they could see was its snout and the tuft of its mane above its panicked eyes.
“Everyone looks at their cellphone, no service,” Dion said. “We couldn’t call Fish and Game, because that was our first thought.
“Well, if we don’t do nothing,” Dion remembers thinking, “the moose probably isn’t going to survive.”
Approaching cautiously, they found that the animal was exhausted, but calm. It had clearly been attempting to free itself without success, and Dion and his friends weren’t even sure if its hooves were on solid ground or not.
Slowly they began to dig the moose out, needing about 20 minutes on their hands and knees to do so.
“Eventually, we got her up and got her going, and she seemed to be all in good health,” Dion said. “I think she was happy. She wasn’t aggressive or too nasty with us. That’s what we were worried about at first.”
After it was freed, the snowmobilers stuck around 10 minutes or so to make certain she was steady before they returned home.
A Fish and Game Department official told WMUR that moose are dangerous animals when cornered, spooked, or provoked. The best course of action, she recommended, if you were to find yourself in the same situation is to call the department.
The story is reminiscent of a story GNN covered in 2024, where snowmobilers in Anchorage dug out a moose that was trapped, but who needed “hours” to free the beast as it had fallen—and then frozen—into the ice of a frozen creek.
WATCH the story below from WMUR News…
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Quote of the Day: “Consider what each soil will bear, and what each refuses.” – Virgil
Photo by: Joshua Earle for Unsplash+
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Happy Birthday to musician and singer-songwriter David Gilmour, who turns 80 years old. In a career spanning more than 50 years, he is best known for his work as the guitarist and co-lead vocalist of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It was estimated that by 2012 the group had sold over 250 million records worldwide. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 14 in their list of the greatest guitarists of all time. WATCH him perform a gorgeous version of the ultimate ballad of angst, Wish You Were Here… (1946)
An interpretation of the strange creature Tankya - credit, Vitor Silva / SWNS
An interpretation of the strange creature Tankya – credit, Vitor Silva / SWNS
The fossilized remains of a creature with a twisted jaw and sideways-facing teeth have been discovered in the Amazon jungle.
Scientists say the plant eating reptiles now called Tanyka consisted of “living fossils” even when they stalked the Earth around 275 million years ago.
A international team of paleontologists recently revealed this strange creature based on their analysis of 9 bones found in a dry riverbed in Brazil.
They described the jawbones as “oddly twisted” with some teeth pointed out and to the sides, and numerous smaller teeth lining the inside of the jaws—a sign that the creatures were among the first of their kind to grind up plants for food.
The new species, described in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, was given the name Tanyka amnicola by the research team.
The name Tanyka comes from the local Indigenous Guaraní language—meaning “jaw”—and amnicola meaning “living by the river.”
“The jaw has this weird twist that drove us crazy trying to figure it out,” said study lead author Dr. Jason Pardo of the Field Museum in Chicago. “We were scratching our heads over this for years, wondering if it was some kind of deformation, but at this point, we’ve got nine jaws from this animal, and they all have this twist, including the really, really well-preserved ones.”
“So it’s not a deformation, it’s just the way the animal was made.”
He said Tanyka is part of a much larger group of animals called tetrapods, which are four-legged animals with backbones. Modern tetrapods include reptiles, birds, mammals, and amphibians.
The oldest tetrapod lineage, called the stem tetrapods, eventually split into two groups: ones that laid eggs outside of water, and ones that laid their eggs in the water.
Today’s reptiles, birds, and mammals are all descendants of the branch that laid watertight eggs on land, while modern amphibians such as frogs and salamanders are the relatives of the tetrapods whose eggs needed to remain moist.
An interpretation of the strange creature Tankya – credit, Vitor Silva / SWNS
But even after the tetrapod family split into the new groups, some of the stem tetrapods remained, and the research team say Tanyka was one of them. The earliest stem tetrapods include what are currently known to be the first creatures that adapted to bearing its weight on land like Icthyostega.
“In the sense that Tanyka was a remaining member of the stem tetrapod lineage, even after newer, more modern tetrapods evolved, Tanyka is a little like a platypus: it was a living fossil in its time,” said Dr. Pardo.
He said a lot about Tanyka, including its body shape, remains a mystery.
“We can say, by comparison with close relatives, that Tanyka might have looked kind of like a salamander with a slightly longer snout.”
Study co-author Dr. Ken Angielczyk, a curator of paleomammalogy at the Field Museum, cautions that until a more complete skeleton can be found, it’s difficult to say for certain if any of the bones found near the jawbone belonged to the same animal.
The researchers aren’t sure how big Tanyka would have been, but they estimate that it might have been up to 3 feet long, and probably lived in lakes, based on the kind of rocks in which the fossils are found.
Remains of the strange creature Tankya – credit, Vitor Silva / SWNS
The surface of Tanyka’s jawbone is covered in a series of smaller teeth called denticles, which form a grinding surface sort of like a cheese grater.
Scientists have yet to find the bones that would make up Tanyka’s upper jaw, but they imagine its top teeth and denticles were oriented similarly to the ones on the lower jaw.
“We expect the denticles on the lower jaw were rubbing up against similar teeth on the upper side of the mouth,” Dr. Pardo said. “The teeth would have been rasping against each other, in a way that’s going to create a relatively unique way of feeding.”
Study co-author says Juan Carlos Cisneros, from the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI), Brazil said that based on its teeth, Tanyka was likely a herbivore that ate plants at least some of the time; most of its fellow stem tetrapods only ate meat.
They said that when Tanyka was alive the area that’s now Brazil was part of one of Earth’s supercontinents—not Pangea, but Gondwana, which included much of modern South America, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica.
“The Pedra de Fogo Formation in Brazil is one of the only windows we have into Gondwana’s animals during the early Permian period of Earth history,” said Dr. Angielczyk. “Tanyka is telling us about how this community actually worked, how it was structured, and who was eating what.”
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An animal conservation/welfare organization has had to think big to solve a big challenge: how to transport elephants in need of veterinary care across long distances.
Their response is the brand new “Elephant Ambulance,” a specially designed truck built to move elephants in a way that protects both them and everybody else on the road.
The organization, Wildlife SOS, got to send out their new pachyderm paramedics over the last weekend of February, when they identified a 27-year-old elephant in rural Uttar Pradesh, India, with an injured leg.
Named Veer, the elephant had lived his life as a “Begging Elephant,” which refers to animals used for labor.
Upon arrival at the scene, the Wildlife SOS’ medical team provided immediate care, conducted a thorough examination, and treated Veer before he began his journey. Once cleared for transport, Veer was loaded into the state-of-the-art vehicle which features specialized access points that allow veterinary technicians to administer medication and monitor vital signs from a protected distance, ensuring the safety of both animal and staff during transport.
The interior is carefully designed to maximize stability and minimize stress. Although elephants must stand while in transit, straps and harnesses enable them to shift weight off injured feet or legs.
Veer the elephant welcomed with feast – Courtesy of Wildlife SOS
The team made frequent stops along the way to allow Veer to lie down and rest, as he was required to remain standing while the ambulance was in motion.
His multi-day journey concluded at Wildlife SOS’s Elephant Hospital at the Elephant Conservation and Care Center in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh.
“This rescue represents both urgency and hope,” said Nikki Sharp, executive director of Wildlife SOS USA. “With our new elephant ambulance and expert veterinary team, we are able to respond faster and more safely than ever before.”
The organization currently cares for more than 30 rescued elephants at its conservation center, where they receive round-the-clock medical attention, nutritious diets, enrichment, and the opportunity to heal in a protected environment.
The Elephant Ambulance isn’t the first innovative approach to caring for elephants that Wildlife SOS has pioneered. Lately, GNN reported that it had developed a method of “elephant acupuncture.”
This 2,000 year old medical practice has been shown to be effective at treating and relieving chronic pain, which can be overexpressed in overworked elephants.
“Once our team gained expertise in acupuncture principles, we began applying it at our Elephant Hospital Campus, yielding remarkable improvements in several elephants,” said Natasha Ashok from Wildlife SOS.
“Veer’s rescue is a powerful reminder of why this work matters,” Sharp said. “Because of our supporters, he now has access to the specialized treatment and long-term care he urgently needs. Every donation helps make rescues like Veer’s possible and gives elephants like him a chance to recover in safety and dignity.”
HONK Your Horn To Your Friends About This Story And The Wide-Load On India’s Highways…
NASA Astronaut Michael Hopkins performing an asteroid mining experiment on board the ISS - credit, NASA via Cornell University - released
NASA Astronaut Michael Hopkins performing an asteroid mining experiment on board the ISS – credit, NASA via Cornell University – released
Last week, GNN reported that fungi were being trailed by scientists in Austria for their potential to extract valuable metals from electronic and industrial wastes.
Now from the ISS comes a very similar story where, rather than ‘mushroom mining,’ scientists were able to extract platinum and palladium with ‘microbe mining.’
It’s actually ‘microbe meteorite mining,’ as the scientist in question, NASA astronaut Michael Scott Hopkins, conducted the tests on L-chondrite meteorite samples which has long been theorized as a valuable source of minerals of all kinds.
All elements we know of are made inside stars, and are embedded inside planets when they explode. This process is the same for asteroids, and at a time when humans are spending more and more time in space, scientists are interested in figuring out how to harvest materials from meteorites and moon dust, as it would likely be cheaper than flying them up from the Earth.
A team of researchers from Cornell and Edinburgh universities recently published a paper in which they performed the same experiment in tandem with Hopkins.’ Both used a bacterium and a fungus to successfully harvest two precious metals with demand for space technology and hardware: platinum and palladium, from asteroids.
The organisms achieve this by producing carboxylic acids which attach themselves to these minerals on the asteroids. Once placed in a liquid solution, the acids slough away and bring the minerals with them.
By comparison to the Cornell experiment, the one aboard the ISS found that microgravity enhanced the fugus Penicillium simplicissimum’s ability to uptake and release palladium and platinum, showing that “bioleaching,” the technical term behind microbe mining, is for one reason or many, more effective in space than on Earth.
In direct contrast, nonbiological leaching—in which a solution without microbes is used to pull out the elements—was less effective in microgravity than on Earth.
“Another complex but very interesting result, I think, is the fact that the extraction rate changes a lot depending on the metal that you are considering, and also depending on the microbe and the gravity condition,” Rosa Santomartino, Cornell professor and first author for the study, said in a statement to Cornell Chronicle.
Several companies are already developing solutions to mine asteroids in space, among which is TransAstra. This firm, which had originally attempted to develop a series of autonomous mining probes, has shifted focus to asteroid mining technologies, including a system for reflecting the light of the Sun to melt and recover valuable elements from asteroids, and a capture bag that can be used to collect passing micrometeorites or space debris for later processing.
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Laundry day – Credit: Curated Lifestyle for Unsplash+
Laundry day – Credit: Curated Lifestyle for Unsplash+
A man who felt he needed a more fulfilling line of work began a mobile laundromat surface the wash the clothes of Philadelphia’s homeless population.
Joe Richardson admits it feels like second nature to wash and dry people’s clothes, something one supposes was engendered in him after he began work at his family’s laundromat business.
In 2021, Richardson had just been released from prison where he had served a 14-year sentence, and though he was grateful for the chance to get back on his feet, he felt he needed a change of direction.
11 years earlier, he had thought up the idea of the mobile laundromat while incarcerated, and felt that the time had come to give it a try. Now for a few hours every week, Richardson volunteers his time to wash clothes on the street.
When NBC’s ‘a-Philly-ate’ NBC 10 when to see Richardson, he had parked the laundromat, which he tows in a trailer behind his truck, at Arch and Broad streets.
“One guy earlier just said that just to have clean clothes is a blessing, it helps me feel better about myself,” he told NBC 10.
The city reckons there are about 5,000 unhoused residents, and 60 shelters city-wide. The current mayor has committed to adding another 1,000 beds to these and additional shelters to reduce the number of people sleeping rough.
WATCH the story below from NBC 10…
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Quote of the Day: “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” – W. Edwards Deming
Photo by: Getty Images for Unsplash+ (cropped)
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
56 years ago today, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty went into effect after ratification by 43 nations agreeing to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. The goal was also to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and to advance disarmament in general. It took three years for the treaty to be negotiated by a United Nations-sponsored committee made up of 18 countries: Canada, France, Great Britain, Italy, the US, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, Brazil, Burma, Ethiopia, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Sweden, the United Arab Republic. READ the current status of the NPT… (1970)
Researchers in Brazil have demonstrated that ultrasonic waves can be used to extract polyphenolic nutrients from leftover cocoa bean husks, as long as you add honey first.
Few things are tastier than dark chocolate dipped in honey, but the researchers weren’t only creating a tasty dessert. Rather, they demonstrated how the vast majority of cocoa cultivation waste can be used to create nutritionally-enriched honey.
Cocoa beans contain a variety of phyto or plant nutrients, such as heart-healthy polyphenols, alkaloids like theobromine, and stimulants like caffeine. They’re obviously grown in mass to create chocolate, but the majority of the biomass of the cocoa harvest is in the husk and other bits that are thrown out as waste.
Nonetheless, the husks contain similar quantities of phytonutrients as the beans that go on to make chocolate. If cultivators had a way to utilize them, it would mean more profit with less waste, and that’s where a team from State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, come in.
They utilized “green chemistry” to breakdown cocoa waste in such a way that not only enhanced nutrient extraction, but avoided degrading the finished product like other methods.
Solvents, often made of harmful chemicals like hexane, are used in processed food production to draw various compounds out of ingredients. For example, hexane is used to draw polyunsaturated fats out of cotton seeds to make cottonseed oil.
Credit: Perfumer Fulvio Ciccolo
In this case the ‘solvent’ is just honey, making the finished product not only a neat chemistry demonstration, but delicious, uniquely healthy, and a better sugar substitute.
“Of course, the biggest appeal to the public is the flavor, but our analyses have shown that it has a number of bioactive compounds that make it quite interesting from a nutritional and cosmetic point of view,” Felipe Sanchez Bragagnolo, the first author of the study, told Agência FAPESP.
By inserting an ultrasonic wave emitter into a vat of native, stingless bee honey and cocoa husks and shells, the soundwaves broke down the plant waste. The team from UNICAMP also believe that the soundwaves killed off existing microbes in the honey that, for purposes of commercial production and sale, would otherwise have had to be removed through pasteurization or limited through refrigeration.
The honey from 5 different species of native, Brazilian bees were tested, as they are higher in liquids and lower in viscosity than the European honeybee which is responsible for most commercial honey production. The native bee called mandaguari (Scaptotrigona postica) was eventually selected, but the authors of the research argued that cocoa plantations could use any native species near them.
“We believe that with a device like this, in a cooperative or small business that already works with both cocoa and native bee honey, it’d be possible to increase the portfolio with a value-added product, including for haute cuisine,” said Professor Mauricio Rostagno, a coordinator of the study and developer of the Path2Green software that assessed the “greenness” of the ultrasonic technology used.
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In a decision that one advocacy group said would “make dignity non-negotiable,” Philadelphia schools have adopted a new wellness program that will guarantee recess and bathroom breaks.
The program also prevents teachers from withdrawing access to these through disciplinary measures, and guarantees “movement breaks” for every 90 minutes of seat time in elementary schools.
It was last Thursday that a marathon, 8-hour school board meeting ended with a full adoption of the wellness program advocated by Lift Every Voice, who told the Philadelphia Inquirer that some of their members were sending their students to school in diapers since bathroom breaks were not guaranteed.
This grassroots, Black-led, parent organization said that if that weren’t bad enough, trips to the drinking water fountains could also withheld during classroom hours.
Incredibly, the Inquirer reported, these draconian controls on basic human needs took two years to codify into school regs. When they were adopted, however, the organization celebrated with music and dancing.
“I wish we had done this much sooner. But I’m pleased that we’re doing it today,” said one school superintendent Tony Watlington Jr.
Any sort of collective punishment was also banned, which included silent lunch hours—where the entire school body must eat in silence due to the misbehavior of a single student—and the withdrawal of access to recess and bathroom breaks.
“When we think about children holding their bodies because bathroom access is protected, or sitting for hours without movement, or rushing through silent lunches, that’s not discipline,” Board of Education councilmember Kendra Brooks said. “It’s actually dehumanizing.”
An unrelated measure decided at the same meeting saw the end of school half-days, which according to school district data, was directly correlated with “plummeting” attendance rates.
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These stunning photos show the moment a huge murmuration of starlings flew in unison across the Worm Moon. // The Worm Moon is named as a signal of spring’s arrival when earthworms emerged from a winter’s hibernation. Remarkable pictures showed the flock of thousands of starlings as they swooped across the skyline as the moon reached its peak. Photographer Tony Nellis captured the scenes as the moon rose over South Shields, Tyne and Wear, on Monday (2/3) night.
– credit, Tony Nellis, via SWNS
These stunning photos show the moment a huge murmuration of starlings flew in unison across March’s full moon.
Remarkable pictures show a flock of thousands of starlings as they swooped across the skyline as the Moon reached its peak.
– credit, Tony Nellis, via SWNS
March’s full moon is known today as a Worm Moon, as it signals spring’s arrival when beetles and other animals emerge from winter hibernation. There are many other recorded names for the March moon, including the Sugar Moon.
The Ojibwe called it thus because it was the time when, provided a maple tree was tapped, the sap which had been too cold during the winter, would begin to run again.
In the UK, photographer Tony Nellis captured the starlings on the wing as the Moon rose over South Shields, Tyne and Wear, last Monday night.
“I couldn’t help think of the phrase ‘the early bird gets the worm’ when I saw the murmuration of starlings flying over the Worm Moon,” he said. “I took loads of pictures of them in the sky and suddenly they swooped down.”
“There were so many birds, the moon was almost blocked out with thousands of starlings silhouetted against it. It was an amazing sight.”
On American shores, the full moon didn’t appear until Tuesday morning, when it coincided with a Lunar eclipse, known colloquially as a “blood moon” which the Brits didn’t see.
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Persian leopard (aka the Anatolian or Caucasian leopard) - Panthera pardus tulliana - by Tamar Assaf / Wikimedia
Persian leopard (aka the Anatolian or Caucasian leopard) – Panthera pardus tulliana – by Tamar Assaf / Wikimedia
Last year, a broad network of camera traps in western Turkmenistan was broadened in the hopes of better understanding the populations of an Endangered leopard subspecies.
Powered by a Washington, DC conservation financier, from a country whose citizens are rarely allowed to visit Turkmenistan, the survey produced positive results.
There are now an estimated 60-80 Persian (aka, Caucasian) leopards dwelling in the country’s nature reserves, a growth from previous surveys, and a sign that even though the 1,000 or so members of this subspecies live in increasingly fragmented habitats, they’re managing to pick and prowl their way through the 21st century.
Two key areas are known to host leopards in this reclusive Central Asian country: in the Kopetdag Mountains along the border with Iran, and the Garabogazgol region, which sits along the Caspian Sea and the slim national border with Kazakhstan.
Here, in the Uly-Balkan Range, an area of natural importance, 3 breeding females were recorded in the camera trap survey, a promising sign that shows the animals are recolonizing these ecosystems where conditions have improved over the last few years.
Conservation X Labs, which undertook the camera trap survey, cited increased habitat protections, larger prey populations, and the long-term impact of conservation efforts as reasons for the improvement in leopard numbers.
The Persian leopard is one of the largest-bodied distinct populations of leopards in the world, writes the Central Asia Times.
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Quote of the Day: “The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Photo by: Kateryna Hliznitsova for Unsplash+
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
A monument to Kenny Dalglish at Anfield, Liverpool's home stadium - credit Silver Novice CC 2.0.
Happy 75th Birthday to Sir Kenny Dalglish, the greatest Scottish footballer of all time, and an iconic figure in the past and present culture of Liverpool FC. Known affectionately as “King Kenny,” Dalglish spent half his career at Celtic, and the other at Liverpool where he scored 172 goals in over 500 appearances, lifted 6 English First Division titles and 3 European cups, and took over the reins as manager on two occasions, winning trophies during both tenures. READ more about the King… (1951)
Creators of the original “party game for horrible people” are proving themselves to be anything but horrible, as they offer customers a formal refund equal to the additional cost they paid for Cards Against Humanity under U.S. President Trump’s tariff regime.
Via a characteristically snarky, curse-filled announcement on their website, founders of the hugely popular card game will allow anyone to submit a simple form—with proof of purchase—to have a portion of their money returned, if the company ever gets a refund related to the illegal Trump Administration tariffs.
Since its fundraising launch as a Kickstarter campaign in 2011, Cards Against Humanity has exploding on the board-game scene with questions and fill-in-the-blank answers ranging from taboo to vulgar, from disgusting to hilarious.
Earning estimated annual revenues between $40-$50 million, the company’s founders began jumping into the political fray last year following the tariff fiasco.
Recently, a new webpage was created that reads: “In a rare example of the American government still kind of functioning, the Supreme Court has finally declared—after waiting a year for no reason—that Donald Trump’s obviously illegal tariffs are obviously illegal.”
“If you overpaid for one of our games, click the button below and fill out the form. Then, when the Trump Administration gives us our tariff refund, we won’t keep it: we’ll give 100% of the money back to you, our loyal customers, who actually make our business possible.”
Cards Against Humanity is adamant that they, themselves, never raised their own prices even after the tariffs were applied, but told Fast Company magazine that large retail stores would have done so after buying the game from them. As a result, they believe their customers overpaid.
It’s not the first time the game’s cheeky creators have gone to bat for their customers since last April’s tariffs were imposed. In October, the company released a special version called ‘Cards Against Humanity Explains the Joke,’ which added an explanation behind what was written on each card.
Technically, the game became an informational product, and was therefore exempt from tariffs, argued the company.
American firms are seeking some $200 billion in refunds for tariff payments, reported Fast Company. Already, FedEx has announced that they will, accordingly, begin a give-back program to people who overpaid.
Perhaps others will follow suit.
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The University of Waterloo research team - credit, released
The University of Waterloo research team – credit, released
A research team led by scientists at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, is developing a novel tool to treat cancer by engineering hungry bacteria to literally eat tumors from the inside out.
Key to the approach is a bacterium called Clostridium sporogenes, which is commonly found in soil and can only grow in environments with absolutely no oxygen.
The core of a solid, cancerous tumor is comprised of dead cells and is oxygen-free, making it an ideal breeding ground for the bacterium to multiply.
“Bacteria spores enter the tumor, finding an environment where there are lots of nutrients and no oxygen, which this organism prefers, and so it starts eating those nutrients and growing in size,” said Dr. Marc Aucoin, a chemical engineering professor at Waterloo. “So, we are now colonizing that central space, and the bacterium is essentially ridding the body of the tumor.”
But there is a biological catch: when the cancer-eating organisms reach the outer edges of tumors, they are exposed to low levels of oxygen and die without completing their mission to fully destroy them.
To solve that problem, the researchers first added a gene to the organism from a related bacterium that can better tolerate oxygen, enabling it to live longer near the outside of a targeted tumor.
They then found a way to activate the oxygen-resistant gene at just the right time—critical to preventing bacteria from inadvertently growing in oxygen-rich places such as the bloodstream—by leveraging a phenomenon known as quorum sensing.
In simple terms, quorum sensing involves chemical signals released by bacteria. Only when many bacteria have grown in a tumor is the signal strong enough to turn on the oxygen-resistant gene, ensuring it doesn’t happen too soon.
In a previous study, researchers demonstrated that Clostridium sporogenes can be modified to tolerate oxygen. In a follow-up study, they tested their quorum sensing system by making bacteria produce a green fluorescent protein.
Researchers now plan to combine the oxygen-resistant gene and the quorum-sensing timing mechanism in one bacterium and test it on a tumor in pre-clinical trials.
Substantial research will still need to be carried out before any such design can come to market, but it’s striking, if one reads GNN, how many alternative methods for cancer treatment are undergoing such investigations, from “electrical knives” and different combinations of existing treatments like chemotherapy, to CRISPR gene editing and stem cell infusions.
GNN recently reported on the incredible advancements in survival from all kinds of cancers in America, with 7 out of 10 patients now living 5-years or more past diagnosis.
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A landmine warning sign in Croatia - credit, Modzzak, CC BY-SA 3.0
A landmine warning sign in Croatia – credit, Modzzak, CC BY-SA 3.0
In an incredible, bittersweet success story, Croatia has announced it has freed itself from the scourge of landmines, 31 years after the country’s civil war.
During the breakup of Yugoslavia, 1.5 million landmines were estimated to have been used by all sides of the conflict, spread across an area of 453 square miles, twice the size of Zion National Park in Utah.
Suspected locations of minefields in Croatia marked in red.
Originally, some 5,000 square miles was believed to be contaminated by mines, but for obvious safety reasons it was difficult to get more accurate estimates.
Now, with more than one billion euros spent, the country has eliminated all known minefields using a combination of metal detectors, heavy machinery, and detection dogs.
“Croatia is free of land mines. After nearly 30 years, we have completed demining in accordance with the Ottawa Convention,” Interior Minister Davor Božinović said during an event in Zagreb, referencing the UN convention on the banning of anti-personnel mines, to which Croatia is a party to.
“Almost 107,000 mines and 407,000 pieces of unexploded ordnance have been removed. This is not just a technical success—it is the fulfillment of a moral obligation to the victims of mines and their families. A mine-free Croatia means safer families, better development of rural areas, more farmland, and stronger tourism.”
It’s difficult to ascertain an exact number, but likely tens of thousands of square miles of ground worldwide still contain minefields or areas contaminated by bombs and shells which failed to explode when they were first used.
Recently, Mozambique was declared mine-free in 2015, after clearing nearly 171,000 mines over 20 years.
Landmines and unexploded ordnance are significant impediments to rural development. Often appearing as shiny curiosities half-buried in the grass, children are at especially high risk of death and maiming from these weapons. Demining charities like HALO often pair their mine-clearance work with awareness raising and educational campaigns in school to help children to learn how to identify and stay away from mines and unexploded bombs.
The triumph in Croatia required hundreds of millions of euros in donations from other countries, and tragically claimed the lives of between 40 and 60 demining personnel who worked to make their country a safe place for generations to come.
CELEBRATE Croatia Freeing Itself From The Scourge Of Landmines On Social Media…
A Siberian tiger, closely related to the extinct population from Kazakhstan - Credit: Bastak State Nature Reserve, CC 4.0. BY-SA
A Siberian tiger, closely related to the extinct population from Kazakhstan – Credit: Bastak State Nature Reserve, CC 4.0. BY-SA
Kazakhstan is preparing to reintroduce the tiger to a special habitat in the country’s south, one of the most ambitious rewilding programs anywhere on Earth.
Arm-in-arm with this has been reforestation efforts of riparian woodland around the Ile River and its delta at Lake Balkhash, which last year amounted to 37,000 young trees.
Between 2021 and 2024, 50,000 trees were planted in the Ile-Balkhash Nature Reserve, which last year also become the temporary haunts of a breeding tiger pair from the Netherlands.
“The results of 2025 are the outcome of many years of painstaking work. We are not simply planting trees, we are laying the foundation for resilient ecosystems capable of sustaining themselves,” said Aibek Baibulov, WWF Central Asia Project Manager for Forest Restoration in Kazakhstan.
“Today, we already see that plantings from previous years have reached heights of up to 2.5 meters, their root systems have reached groundwater, and they are forming natural communities. Restoring tugai forests is the basis for the return of wildlife to the region. Without healthy ecosystems, it is impossible to speak of stable animal populations, including the return of the tiger. We are grateful to all our partners and local residents who are contributing to this work.”
The program is being led by the government of Kazakhstan with support from WWF Central Asia and the UN Development Program.
If successful, it would be the first time that tigers were reintroduced to a range country where they are currently extinct. Genetic studies on bones and furs held in national collections revealed that the population of tigers living between Iran, southern Russia, Central Asia, and the areas around the Caspian Sea was extremely similar to Siberian tigers.
To that end, and with cooperation from the Netherlands, Bodhana and Kuma, a male and female Amur tiger pair, were transported from their sanctuary in the Low Countries to a semi-natural holding facility in Ile-Balkhash Nature Reserve where they’ve been growing accustomed to the climate. It’s hoped, but not known, that they will breed.
Their offspring, once fully grown, will be the second-group of tigers released into the reserve, but as Baibulov said, that will be the final mile of a long journey that started years ago when the country had to begin to secure and grow populations of prey species.
Decades of work have seen populations of the saiga antelope bounce back from a perilously low 48,000 individuals in 2005 to a new high of over 1.9 million. Additionally, in 2019, several Bukhara deer were released into the reserve with hopes of reestablishing a healthy population that can sustain tigers, with another 200, give or take a dozen, released over the following years.
The species of tree seedlings planted over the last two years reflect these animals’ feeding habits, and include 5,000 willow seedlings, 30,000 long-leaved oleasters, and 2,000 native popular trees sacred to Kazakhs called turangas, along a 2.4 mile stretch of the banks of Lake Balkhash, the largest lake in Central Asia after the Aral Sea disappeared.
“Already, wild ungulates have been seen foraging on the restored sites, indicating that the ecosystem is beginning to function,” a spokesperson for WWF Central Asia told Live Science in an email. “Each planted seedling is therefore a direct contribution to the future of the tiger in Kazakhstan.”
The stage is set, (or you could maybe say the dinner table) for the return of the protagonist, and the Astana Times wrote just recently that the first wild Amur tigers would be arriving in Kazakhstan from Russia in the coming months, according to Chairman of the Committee for Forestry and Wildlife of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, Daniyar Turgambayev.
